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Center for Applied Molecular Technologies (CTMA) is a mixed military-academic technological plate-form in charge with the issues related to Biological Threats. CTMA develops its CBRNE expertise through the synergy between the university and the Defense laboratories Department, taking advantage of in house existing and emerging technologies, multidisciplinarity as well as academic and military networking. Accordingly, this plate-form hosts at the same location researchers |
| appointed by the Belgian Ministry of Defense (BE-MOD), the Université catholique de Louvain (UCL) and its associated academic hospital (Cliniques universitaires St Luc). Several fruitful academic and military bilateral partnerships are currently active. The main goal of CTMA is to develop and validate dual-use molecular and genetic prognostic and diagnostic tools and methods allowing rapid molecular identification and resistance pattern of pathogens or molecular and genetic mechanisms of diseases (either inflammatory of neoplastic diseases). Regarding infectious diseases, detection methods are validated and directly applied both on human samples collected for presumed infected patients presenting in hospitals with a difficult diagnosis (failure of conventional microbiologic methods, need for a very rapid diagnosis) or from environmental samples collected from operational theaters where a potential risk has been identified or is feared. Aside of the current genetic methods, new emerging genetic and molecular technologies, such as nanotechnologies, are therefore designed and validated within consortia to produce innovative operational tools enabling us to better detect, hence to rapidly alert and protect patients or troops in operations against known and unknown threatening infectious agents. | |